Newcomer of the Month

chembid

1. Why did you found your startup, which problem do you address and how do you solve it?

The chemical industry – though one of the largest industries worldwide – is still somewhat stuck in old habits when it comes to marketing and sales. Chances offered by the digitization are not embraced by many players and many opportunities vanish. Chembid aims to aid chemical companies to be present on the internet and profit from online-marketing measures. With a new generation of professional buyers new demands rise. By being listed on the chembid platform companies will be found by buyers using digital channels searching for suppliers on the internet. The amount of searches conducted by those will rise steadily and hence this channel will grow in importance. Therefore, we aim to give this group a tool creating transparency by collecting the available technical and commercial information of chemicals and chemical suppliers.

2. What gave you the idea to found chembid?

The idea to found chembid rose from several minds and was based on the growing need to also apply the digital transformation in the chemical industry.

3. What is special about your business-model, what are you doing differently?

With our metasearch engine we are one level higher than all the marketplaces out there. By collecting and aggregating suitable results of marketplaces and single web shops we are able to deliver more transparency and hence value to buyers, but also to suppliers in the chemical industry.

4. Which were the biggest challenges you needed to overcome in the beginning?

At first many companies did not realize the urgency of tackling digital marketing & sales projects rather today than at some diffuse point in time. One of the biggest challenges definitely was to sensitize responsible persons in companies to this situation.

5. What was the most valuable advice somebody gave to you during your foundation phase?

“When it comes to innovation an ounce of execution is worth more than a ton of theory” Phil McKinney, former CTO of HP

6. What was your greatest success so far?

Regarding the amount of products we are now the biggest database for chemical products worldwide and achieved a user growth by more than 800% in 2018.

7. What is your biggest need/your next challenge?

Our biggest challenge of today is to keep growing like we did in 2018.

8. Why are you on Starbase/VZ?

We are always eager to get in contact with other players from the start-up and business world. This platform is a great vehicle to get in touch!

9. What would you recommend other founders?

Be persistent, patient and loud.

10. What went really wrong since you founded?

The first approach with our marketplace only was not unique enough in its idea. We learned from that and stepped one level higher with our new meta search approach.

11. Let´s say, you are the Governing Mayor of Oldenburg for one day, what would you change?

I would create more spaces and more events, where Startups and established companies can meet and learn from each other in an informal environment.